Unusual Hauls
by Aliathe
Summary: Sasuke is kidnapped, Naruto is the kidnapper, and Sakura is their amazing getaway driver who demands more credit. But, inexplicably, they're still friends. Somehow. [Modern!AU] [Pointless Fluff-ish One-shot] [Team 7 Banter] [Companion to 'Mealtime Chatter']


**Summary:** _Sasuke is kidnapped, Naruto is the kidnapper, and Sakura is their amazing getaway driver who demands more credit. But, inexplicably, they're still friends. Somehow. [Modern!AU] [Pointless Fluff-ish One-shot] [Team 7 Banter] [Companion to 'Mealtime Chatter']_

 **Disclaimer:**

 _I don't own Naruto or the cover picture. The song lyrics are from jubyphonic's English cover of PONPONPON._

* * *

"This is incredibly illegal and just might get me fired, I hope you realize that and _anguish_ ," Sasuke hissed, limp as he was manhandled towards a car.

" _Relax_ ," his captor breezily sighed, "you're the heir and basically the CEO already. They _can't_ fire you."

He didn't particularly care about cars, mostly picking out his own cars on the basis of how ludicrously expensive and envy-inducing they were.

Therefore, the only things that really stuck out to him about the car he was being manhandled towards was that it was black, it was sleek, it was a convertible with the hood down, it was a 5-seater, and Haruno Sakura was smugly smirking at him from the driver's seat.

 _Oh kami no._

"Get in-" she began to say, utter glee infecting, taking over, and oozing off of her very words.

Sasuke's eyes widened in horror from behind his brand-name very-costly sunglasses.

"You _wouldn't-_ "

"-loser, we're going _shopping_ ," Sakura finished, proving that _oh yes she would_.

" _How dare you quote 'Mean Girls' at me._ "

It was a flat threat, not a question.

As far as threats went, it ranked respectably on the 'promising vengeance' scale.

Unfortunately, that accursed pinkette, through many tortuous, angst-filled years of Sasuke-exposure, and Uchiha-exposure included in the messy bundle, had developed immunity to his threats.

Also, maybe something about her being a loan shark, and thus issuing and receiving several hundred threats per day, factored into her immunity.

Maybe.

Something cool and metal prodded the bare flesh of his rolled-up suit-sleeves, warningly.

"Ahehehe, sorry 'bout the whole 'taking you against your will' thing, but I swear that it isn't illegal. Much. Besides, you know we've got enough clout to bluff out of any possible accusations, and your mother even agreed that you needed a break, and if worst comes to worst, Sakura-chan can always bail us out of jail! I think! I'll have to tase you again if you start moving before we get you strapped in, though," a cheerful, vaguely apologetic voice chipped in from around his ear.

"Nah," Sakura disagreed lightly, winking, "I've got some contacts who owe me a few… _favors_. That oughta keep me out of any theoretical prison. And we can count on Naruto's rabid cultists to hear of his incarceration before he's even incarcerated, leading to them pre-emptively breaking him out. Before, in all likeliness, there's anything to break him out _of_. Still having that stalker problem, Naruto?"

Naruto perked up, jolting Sasuke, who was the deadweight being held up by the blond's right arm slung around his chest (the hand pressing a mini-taser carefully out-of-sight onto Sasuke's arm).

"Oh, yeah, Hinata-chan! She's actually really nice after we got over the whole 'hey you're that person who was stalking me' thing and the whole 'i actually thought you were a ghost haunting me' thing. We've almost fixed her fainting habit whenever I say anything louder than a whisper… or to her face… or for more than three seconds… or while smiling…"

"So basically, you've made no progress at all," Sasuke sneered, and most definitely not sulking, because it was demeaning to an Uchiha's pride to imply they were sulking in any way.

Uchihas didn't _sulk_.

They… pondered the injustice dealt to them.

While planning their swift and vicious payback.

Yeah.

Totally.

Sakura frowned deeply at him.

Her 'i-am-so-disappointed-in-your-pettiness' frown, copied off from either the lovely Uchiha Mikoto, or from a kindergarten teacher scolding a child.

Not her sharp frown, the 'you-are- _so_ -going-to-regret-that-when-i-sabotage-your-past-and-ruin-your-present-and-destroy-your-future-with-the-power-of-money-and-punches' one that usually convinced the indebted person in question to pay up.

With interest.

The ones who _didn't_ pay up were the ones so stupidly _idiotic_ , that what happened to them was really a good-hearted contribution to cleansing the human gene pool, seriously.

(He tried to imagine Sakura, ruthless, violent Sakura doing something out of the goodness of her heart, and had to use all of his experience to glowering and keeping on a neutral face in order to not burst out into laughter.)

"Naruto," she snapped, eyes narrowing, "tase him again. Then give me his sunglasses. He needs more sunlight, and those sunglasses are too nice to waste on his broody face."

This was the sort of twisted logic that appealed best to the dobe's equally twisted mind, produced from the demon-witch's twisted sense of humor.

' _How are these my friends,_ ' he wailed noiselessly, as another wracking spasm of agony and limpidness occurred.

He would've tried to claw at Naruto when he reached to take off his sunglasses, or even bite him in case of failure, if it weren't for the extremely inconvenient and irritating fact that _he couldn't feel his kami-damned body anymore_.

Naruto obediently removed the glasses, tossed them to Sakura, and, upon finally reaching the car Sakura had probably hijacked or 'legally acquired through unorthodox means', opened the door to toss his pale and dark-haired luggage in.

Except-

Apparently he forget that Sasuke was to his left, barely supported by his right arm.

So-

The car door slammed directly into his gut.

( _Critical hit!_ )

Defying the laws of pain and taser-induced numbness, the heir to the Uchiha Corporations (after the last heir had defected to work for the Akatsuki, Konoha City's version of a vigilante gang/Peace Corps/police authority mash-up) managed to stumble and cling to the side of the car, instead of losing balance completely and face-smashing into the concrete.

"Oops," Naruto grinned sheepishly, clapping him a bit too hard on the back (unintentionally, _honest_ ), "I kinda let go by accident there. S'okay, teme?"

Sakura rolled her eyes, now clad stylishly behind her new (and free!) pair of fabulous sunglasses.

(Free stuff is always better than paid-for stuff, everyone knows that.)

"Must I do _everything?_ " she complained, not without justification.

She opened her door, got out, walked over, hip-checked the blond into the backseat, picked up the Uchiha, and bodily threw him in after the blond.

Then she closed that door, walked back, got in, closed _her_ door, and very calmly said, "Naruto, buckle Sasuke in. Sasuke, don't you dare get out of this fucking car before we let you. Now, we are going to go and have a nice lunch, since we are Team 7 and _we rule this city_. That's how it's done, boys."

Naruto opened his mouth, presumably to ask another inane question, or to congratulate her on her appropriately dramatic quote.

She stomped down, _hard_ , onto the pedal.

The car jumped from 0 to 50 in less than two seconds, flinging Naruto's head back into the headrest.

Sasuke remembered very abruptly why she'd (kinda, off-handedly) warned him to buckle, and scrambled for the seatbelt, praying to Amaterasu that this car ride wouldn't end up in flames.

On second thought, he considered, perhaps it wasn't best to pray to a goddess of fire in this case.

Sakura grinned, madly and toothily, short hair whipping wildly behind her, as she broke at least ten different traffic laws and listened to the wondrous chorus of metallic crashes, rubber squealing, shouted cursing, and muffled sobs for help.

She happily stuck her head out of the window and fluently cursed everyone else out in a guttural assortment of languages.

Not what she went to college for, but hey, at least her linguistic skills were still being put to arguably good use.

A day spent terrifying her best (male) friends is a day well spent.

(And, okay, so _maybe_ she still had some leftover resentment against Sasuke from their school days, shifting hot and angry in her stomach.

Whatever.

This was as decent of a therapy as any other, except Naruto's infamous Talking Therapy, but there was _no way_ in the six hells that she was going to let him use _that_ on her.

She had _standards_ , uh, _thankyouverymuch_.)

.

.

.

Itachi glanced at the road, sipping his tea from the teahouse he was lunching in.

"HQ said to check out reports of a black car going too fast," Kisame rumbled, reading off of the info-pad equipped to every Akatsuki core member. "Three passengers, female driver, two males in the back, early twenties."

A glimpse of pink and black and blond hurtled past his keen eyes, slowing in motion as he mentally processed the blur, hearing snatches of German and Greek swears that managed to drift into their windowside seats.

"Aa," he replied serenely, "it's simply Haruno Sakura driving, with the Uzumaki in the backseat. My foolish little brother has been dragged out on another one of their excursions, so it seems. Mother quite likely authorized it with her blessing. No worries."

The ceramic cup nestled warm in his cupped hands, glowing with invisible heat.

After a moment of silence, Itachi took another gentle sip, listening to the tapping of his partner sending an answer to HQ.

It was exceedingly pleasant tea.

He made a note to inquire what the blend was.

Perhaps his mother would appreciate a little gift, in lieu of his unfortunate absence from most of their dinners.

Father did not appreciate his refusal of the heir position, which was to be expected.

Still, at least Sasuke seemed happier with his team, no matter how much he protested, or how, indeed, he himself might think.

Big brother knew best.

.

.

.

Over the horrendous, atrocious, despicable sounds coming out of Naruto's mouth as he attempted to sing along with the radio (because, despite his many talents, singing is not and is never going to be one of them; _Sakura_ sang better than Naruto did, and she still sang like a dying duck), Sasuke repeated, "this is illegal," more out of a desire to emphasize that than out of any actual hope it'll change their crazy minds.

 _"Wouldn't it be so much fun? Just think about it, skipping round with everyone,"_ Naruto warbled irrelevantly.

"Cool. And I wanted a new pair of sunglasses after I broke my last pair glasses-whipping this pervert on the train," Sakura merrily retorted, clearly in a better mood as she tore down the asphalt of the empty street, all other cars having long since learned to flee at the glimpse of pink.

Sasuke glared at her.

 _"We'd change this city up go on and take my hand, c'mon now everybody just look up at the starlight,"_ interjected the same Naruto.

"What?" she 'innocently' asked, tilting down the sunglasses the same way that Sasuke always did, clearly mocking him. "I thought we were just listing random and unimportant facts. Was that not what you were doing?"

 _"Yeah it may be too crazy, may be way too dumb. The chances are all out there, but you just need one,"_ he added unhelpfully.

"Sakura…" Sasuke growled out.

 _"PON PON, dance it through. Don't know where I'm going to. Why wait another day? Boring any other way,"_ a certain therapist with a cult cheered, no longer even _remotely_ involved with the conversation.

"Sasuke…" Sakura sweetly smiled into the mirror, eyes shining verdant angelicness. "Are we now calling each other's names? My, how forward of you, but I'm afraid I'm not ready for a relationship. It's not me, it's you, understand?"

 _"Headphones set to go, rhythm rocking down the road. WAY WAY just can't say, when I find it, I will know,"_ Naruto lilted energetically, nodding his head to an imaginary beat.

"What…" he sighed, suddenly tired. "What is this? Why do you and the dobe insist on forcing me to go out and eat lunch with you two every other Tuesday? Do you two just enjoy aggravating me?"

 _"DON DON do you hear? Beating feeling leading clear. BOY BOY toy with me, keep on playing, soon I'll leave,"_ the blond sagely advised.

The car abruptly lurched to it's side, swerving to a sudden stop, neatly parked in Ichiraku Noodles' parkinglot.

Sakura turned around to face him, not smiling anymore, her brows furrowed slightly and eyes intent, not teasing.

"Because you're Team Seven," she stated in a 'well, duh' sort of way.

A corner of her lips quirked upwards.

"And Team Seven sticks together."

Getting out and kneeing her door shut, keys banished into the depths of her purposely-heavy handbag, Sakura dismissively waved behind her as she stalked determinedly towards the entrance of the restaurant.

"Although you _are_ exceptionally easy to aggravate. Now hurry up before we ditch you. Oh, and you're totally paying. Mikoto-oba-chan said so."

 _"Merry go round I'm always jumping on. But thinking back, oh wait, I might be wrong,"_ Naruto finished, giving him a friendly nudge, and exiting the car in favor of chasing Sakura.

And ramen, which was higher up on his list of priorities at the moment, if Sasuke knew Naruto like he thought he knew him.

 _If Sasuke knew his team as well as they thought they knew him._

Slowly, he climbed out.

Sasuke followed after his team, smirking, Sakura commanding them to quicken their pace, smiling, Naruto professing his planned meal, grinning.

… _Happy_ , as tentative as that strange realization was.

* * *

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 ** _'Mealtime Chatter' is officially it's own universe, with more one-shots coming after this sequel/prequel/? of sorts._**

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 ** _-Review, lest the Kingdom of Fanfictia fall to it's enemy: Wrytterblockios.-_**


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